Regional variations of antioxidant capacity and phenolic properties in the Iranian jujube collection

Background & Aim: Fruits from the jujube plant (Ziziphus jujuba) possess health-promoting effects and medicinal properties. Jujube has a long history of usage as a remedy in Iranian traditional medicine and is recommended for the treatment of some diseases. This study investigated the variations in antioxidant capacities (AOX), total phenol (TPH), total flavonoid (TF) and total anthocyanin (TA) contents of fruit extracts among 29 jujube accessions originating from 7 provinces of Iran. Experimental: The fruits from 29 accessions were extracted with methanol (85%). DPPH assay were performed for determination of antioxidant capacity of each extract. The total phenols were measured by Folin-Ciocalteu method and total flavonoids evaluated using the aluminum chloride colorimetric procedure while total anthocyanins were determined by pH-differential method. Results & Discussion: The results from the analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the examined accessions of Z. jujuba were highly variable in all evaluated phytochemical traits (P <0.01). Principal component analysis (PCA) based on four phytochemical characters confirmed this broad variation and also identified three distinct group among the accessions. The accessions Hamidabad (Mazandaran), Bayaziyeh (Isfahan) and kuhpayeh2 (Isfahan) can considered by their high values for the TPH, TF, and TA values, respectively. On the other hand, accessions Ardestan (Isfahan), Ghaziolya (Ghom) and Maroon (Ghom) showed high AOX. No correlation was found between total phenol content and antioxidant activity. Industrial and practical recommendations: These findings suggest the importance of genotype and origin for determining antioxidant potential and phenolic contents of jujube plants. The knowledge of the diversities, found in this study, will allow a better plant exploitation related to pharmaceutical uses and also a better conduction of breeding programs for Ziziphus jujubaecotypes.